Adding value

Abhijeet Kanade, senior faculty, post-production, Reliance Education, tells youngsters keen on taking up advertising why they should be passionate about their audience, research and creativity

ZooZoos — the little white humanoids made quite an impact when Vodafone unleashed them. If you’ve ever felt apprehensive about taking up a new activity or adventure, Mountain Dew’s slogan: ‘Darr ke aage jeet hai’, will help you push beyond your limits. New-age brides looking for unconventional dressing would certainly take cue from the divine Deepika Padukone — the face of Tanishq’s eclectic jewellery collection. The two morons — Ramesh and Suresh — in 5 Star’s advertisement may have been annoying, but the dumb and dumber do leave a lasting impression.

Creating powerful, impactful advertisements is artful, and has always been a great career option. Abhijeet Kanade, senior faculty, post-production, Reliance Education, tells us more about this career and what to keep in mind before exploring it.
Advertising is a combination of Marketing, Communication, Psychology, and the use of new and old media. “It connects you with the direct and indirect market to increase the brand value of a product, be it big or small,” says he adding that one might have heard people saying, ‘Kit Kat wala cadbury dena’ or ‘Patanjali wala colgate dena’, in which Cadbury and Colgate are referred to as generic terms for chocolate and toothpaste, respectively. He points out that advertisers study the psycho-neuro design patterns of people, which they use to induce different forms of imagery into our system, also known as mental imaging, which makes people hum jingles for hours. He explains that from medium to medium the complex structures are simplified to reach the human mind and stay for long which ultimately directs a person to make a choice when buying products.

How Advertising Evolved
Kanade says that the evolution of technology from the mid ’90s led to newer advertising tools and communication devices like mobile phones. “With the help of communication studies, the marketing and advertising world started using new tricks and techniques to gain access to the direct market. Many new brands started entering monopolistic markets. Marketing techniques like product placement also came into existence. In the future, we might see a plane carrying a billboard of a specific brand,” he says.

What to keep in mind
If a student is planning to take up advertising, they would have to keep certain things in mind. “Sometimes you may have to create advertisements that may go against your values. The only way to survive is to show sheer optimism,” says Kanade adding, “If you want to make a career in advertising you should be passionate about your audience, research, creativity and marketing.”

GET IN TO THE SHOES OF your audience
“Be a consumer and do a comparative analysis between brands, make a list of positive and negatives about the brand, and try and find out what they are selling through their advertisements,” says Kanade adding, “Understand why Flipkart uses kids in their advertisements, or why feminine ads have a softer look and never feel harsh on the eyes. For an established brand, you need to sell the product to those consumers who are against your brand and not to those who are actually buying it.” Also, try to do odd jobs to understand the public. “Be a waiter to understand food patterns, observe what type of news interests older people, read how design structures have been set in hoardings, be alert to all trending fashion and tech. The more you explore the more you get,” he adds.